In a major victory for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, the state Supreme Court ruled that the city’s School Reform Commision may not unilaterally cancel the teachers’ contract, as it sought to do in 2014.
“This is a total and complete repudiation of the position taken by the SRC when it surreptitiously met on Oct. 6, 2014, and passed a resolution to cancel the terms and conditions of the PFT contract,” said PFT president Jerry Jordan. “It means that the SRC has to honor the contract, and it’s my hope the SRC will return to the bargaining table and negotiate a contract with the PFT.”
“At that meeting, when the District said it was facing a funding shortfall of $71 million the following year despite closing dozens of schools and eliminating thousands of jobs, the commission announced that it was restructuring teachers’ health benefits to save $44 million. Commissioners said they would use the money to restore counselors, teacher aides, language classes and other services that had been drastically cut back.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane, I’m curious about your take on this Cornell study about collective bargaining: http://m.phys.org/news/2015-11-teachers-bargaining-student-income.html I’m in MA and we have great student outcomes and strong teachers unions, it seems to me they go hand in hand
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Jennifer, you are right to be troubled by that study. The top-performing states in the nation are Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey, all strong union states. The lowest performing are states where collective bargaining is banned. Frankly, I am dubious about projecting a causal relationship between unions and earnings in the workforce.
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While perhaps impossible to prove cause-and-effect, unionization does lead to a more stable and better-trained workforce, and stability (reform cliches about “disruptive innovation” – which is really about looting everything in sight – notwithstanding) is something that children need, especially when there’s little of it in their homes.
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Best definition I’ve read yet to describe our district’s endless push for “disruptive” innovation. LOOTING EVERYTHING IN SIGHT.
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Reblogged this on Matthews' Blog.
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“Disruptive” innovation. LOOTING EVERYTHING IN SIGHT…. a real winner.
I get email alerts from the Clayton Christian Institute and a couple of other outfits with an overreach into education from dubious theories about the virtues of disruption, entrepreneurial churn, technology, managerial efficiencies, and so on.
Unions of teachers are more often targeted for far more criticism than unions of firefighters, police, first responders, even nurses.
Why do you suppose that is? Could it be that this profession is demeaned because it is dominated by women who are in a caregiving role, in charge of children and teens, but really not entitled to have a say in the conditions of their work and compensation?
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